January 19, 2006

From his ivory tower of academia, Michael Rubin blames the fools on the ground:

The Bush Doctrine is correct, but the implementation is lousy.

Ron Dermer, co-author of Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy", says elections are the problem:

I think if I have any criticism, it's that the whole doctrine has come to mean having elections as soon as possible, and that's not what this is all about.

Got that? Democracy without elections, that's what it's all about!

Michael Ledeen wants more war:

What I've always said is that you cannot win a regional war by conducting it in just one place. With regard to Iraq, our failure to deal with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, and just focus on Iraq by itself was doomed from the beginning. And I said that before we went into Iraq.

In his latest article, Ledeen calls the current state of affairs in the MidEast an "embarrassment", says Jack Straw is "pathetic" and anyone else who thinks things will change without lots more bloody US-sponsored violence is guilty of "wishful thinking":

You want sanctions? When have sanctions ever "worked" against hostile countries? Did they bring Saddam to heel?

3 comments:

interesting comments. i think 2006 will bring revolution to iran but hopefully not from without. Change surely has to come from the inside or fail.

On the other hand, the activities of other countries do affect Iran of course and that failed state Russia should admit its foreign policy hypocrisy is driven by energy and fear. The Chinese don't have to admit much, as they are already up front...it's all about business with them, no more no less. On the other hand they could start explaining what the hell they are doing on the security council when they pretend to pursue a bullshit non-interference policy.

an op-ed today about iran was interesting - http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17864006%255E7583,00.html

A pile of garbage composed of false assumptions and outright lies born of abject and irrational fear: That Iran would use nuclear weapons if it had them. That the Iranian President is a religious nut in addition to being a stark raving lunatic. That human right abuse in Iran should be of greater concern than those taking place in Sudan and elsewhere in the world. That sanctions don’t work.

The fact is that the western powers want to be in a position to blackmail Iran, another oil-rich country, whenever they want to. Be in a position to attack and occupy it whenever the need for oil got dire enough. If Iraq did not prove that to you, nothing will. You can look at it through any colored lenses you want to but Russia and China will not let America have a stranglehold on all the oil in the Middle East.

Aggressive stance against Iran will only serve to unite all the Iranian people against a common external enemy and work against your stated goal of bringing about a regime change. Sanctions work and Iraq is proof of the fact that sanctions work. The western powers and Australia’s greed in profiting from an oppressed country ensured that the people of Iraq bore the blunt of the sanctions while they and Saddam profited. Over a million Iraqi children were killed as a result of the sanctions being undermined by us. How many Iranian children must die because of the sanctions we want to impose on Iran with the specific intention of undermining them for our monetary gains?

Do you seriously think the US does anything it does because it cares or for self-defense?